Pages

Friday, 13 June 2014

Single Malt Savings: The Glenlivet Nadurra

I'm not sure if you've noticed, but the World Cup is here! A month of the best national teams slogging away at each other for a month to decide World supremacy! This of course has nothing to do with all that, I just fancied mentioning it, however, this could be useful for Father's Day on Sunday if we haven't already given you enough gift ideas.

Glenlivet are one of the more commercial single malt distilleries about, but produce some great whiskies (I reviewed their 15yr a while back) and the Nadurra is one of their best. The Nadurra is released in single batches which are individually numbered, meaning that there is some variation like you get in wine vintages. Also the whisky is non chill-filtered meaning that you lose none of the flavour through over-sieving and is bottled at cask strength (56.1%) meaning that his whisky hasn't been diluted down too much and you get more bang for your buck as well as extra flavour.

This whisky is aged for 16 years in first-fill american oak cask, which lets the whisky get stuffed with flavour and develop nicely, and there is no artificial colourant added - this is a pretty natural whisky by today's standards. The Nadurra is on offer at Waitrose until 17/06/14 for £40, £7.50 off and an extra steal due to the amount of alcohol and flavour in the bottle.

On the nose there is an assault of orange peel, lemons, vanilla, apples, pears, cinnamon, fruit cake, marmalade and flowers. With added water the nose all melds together really nicely into a spiced fruit cake with caramel, lots more orange and even more floral, it really sweetens up with the water. This is a great nose with depth that is wonderfully sweet, it's really interesting and really doesn't take all night to get your head around which is nice, the nose really jumps out of the glass.

On the palate it is quite fiery without any water - it really burns your tongue, fire-eaters look no further! This dram really does need water, a good amount, but taste as you add water to get it where you want it. With water you firstly get pepper come through, with sweet spices, citrus, apples, caramel, slightly burnt toast, vanilla and a big hit of cloves on the finish.

This whisky is massive on both the palate and the nose, it can be a bit hot, but you just need to get your balance of whisky and water right. This is a truly legendary malt, there is so much in this dram there's stuff there for everyone except the peat freaks, but they should be open to this simply due to the complexity and quality. Honestly this isn't a malt for everyone, definitely not a starter dram, but is great for the more seasoned drinkers.

Be sure to grab a bottle from Waitrose for £40 and score a goal (or something football related as some stupid pun).